A fixed broadband service encompasses a subscriber of an Internet Service Provider (ISP) (herein after referred to simply as the ‘service provider’) accessing the Internet by means of a Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), which connects to the service provider's network through an aggregation device or a switch. Multiple subscribers are aggregated and terminated on a Broadband Network Gateway (BNG). The BNG is a network device in the service provider's network that provides Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (AAA) service to the subscriber and acts as the gateway between the subscriber and the Internet. The CPE acts as the link between the subscriber's home network and the service provider's network and hides the details of individual local devices attached to the CPE. The subscriber can be an individual having a residential home network, a small business having a small network or similar type of entity that administers a local area network or similar network.
A Virtual Home Gateway (vHGW) or Virtual CPE (vCPE) is system where the functions of a CPE are moved into the Service Provider's network. With this solution, the CPE is functioning primarily as an L2 connectivity device to the home network. Individual sessions for devices behind the CPE are directly managed by the BNG. This exposes the subscriber end devices' identity to the BNG and generally the service provider network.
However, the subscriber demands from fixed broadband service go beyond a basic provision of data bandwidth between the subscriber and the Internet. The subscriber is also interested in the service provider maintaining a broader quality of experience. One such requirement for that quality of experience is the ability to provide access to the fixed broadband services of the subscriber when the subscriber is connected to networks other than the home network of the subscriber. Accessing these subscriber services is not possible with current access network architectures.